“Don’t use France as an excuse for your arseholery”: woman pens open letter to President Trump

Last week, a man with a machete was shot outside the Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping plaza adjoining The Louvre museum in Paris.

The man had rushed toward a group of soldiers and guards while shouting the phrase “Allahu akbar”, according to Paris police Chief Michel Cadot.

Two soldiers who were injured in the incident have since recovered, and noobody else was harmed. However that did not stop President Donald Trump from using it to justify his controversial immigration ban.

“A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked the Louvre Museum in Paris,” he wrote. “Tourists were locked down.”

Trump, ignoring the fact that the attacker was Egyptian (Egypt is not on the list of seven Muslim-majority countries that had travel rights suspended to the United States), added: “France is on edge again.

“Get smart, U.S. We must keep ‘evil’ out of our country.”

Trump’s messages, which drew over 87,000 retweets, inspired Egie Wild, a Parisian local, to sit down and pen a powerful open letter to the POTUS.

Addressed to ‘Mr Trump’ as opposed to ‘Mr President’, her message begins politely enough, with the words: “Thank you for your concern.”

It continues: “A man has indeed attacked a soldier with two machetes… [but] it wasn’t in the Louvre Museum, it was in the Carousel du Louvre, which is a mall.”

Pointing out that Trump’s tweets were “ambiguous”, the letter also reminds readers that there was absolutely no hostage situation – and that nobody, other than the attacker and the soldier, was harmed.

“France is not on edge again, at all,” insists Wild. “I learned about the attack 10 hours after it happened (even though it was in the media earlier), and I spent one and a half hours in another Parisian mall at lunch today without any kind of military reinforcement.”

She adds: “Oh, and by the way, the man is from Egypt. You know, the country you didn’t ban from entering the US (because of your personal affairs)?

“Again, thank you for your concern, but don’t use France as an excuse for your arseholery. You’re the one encouraging fear with your distortion of the truth.”

In a postscript, Wild directly addresses citizens of the US, as she implores them to “get smart”.

“Don’t believe anything that he says without checking facts first,” she advises.

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Kayleigh Dray

Kayleigh Dray is editor of Stylist.co.uk, where she chases after rogue apostrophes and specialises in films, comic books, feminism and television. On a weekend, you can usually find her drinking copious amounts of tea and playing boardgames with her friends.